The Colombian coffee growers protecting the spectacled bear

In Colombia’s Western Villa de Cauca region, Jhoan Bravo’s coffee farm is nestled in the verdant green Andean mountains, covered in a tapestry of fertile fields and emerald forests. It is a striking backdrop for a 30-hectare (74-acre) estate that has been in his family for more than 50 years.

As he moves among clusters of bright red coffee cherries, the 35-year-old recalls a childhood memory of his grandfather returning home one day with a spectacled bear he had killed. The animal’s fat – believed by locals to have medicinal properties – was extracted and smeared onto the belly buttons of Bravo and the males in the family to make them stronger.

“This wasn’t something unusual. When I was a child, hunting animals was normal around here – it was a way of life,” Bravo says, explaining that animal skins were often dried or stuffed and used for farm equipment, like horse saddles or as decorations in homes.

But over the years, sightings of the creatures – also known as Andean bears (Tremarctos ornatus) – became less common.

Some of Bravo’s family continued to hunt other animals. However Bravo, as well as tending to the coffee farm, preferred riding his horse into the forest to chop down trees and sell the wood to locals. “It was illegal, but I’d get some money for it,” he says.

He was unaware that his work was having a negative impact on the bears. “If you don’t know that by making noise with your big, rattling chainsaw or by chopping down a tree, you’re harming animals, then you don’t see it as anything bad,” he says.

Large areas of Jhoan Bravo’s land are now used to restore the habitat of spectacled bears [Catherine Ellis/Al Jazeera]

In 2017, he began to discover the severity of the threats to the Andean bear. And today, as Bravo breathes in the sweet, earthy aromas from the coffee beans on his farm, he says his mindset has shifted dramatically: Rather than hunting the bears and destroying their habitat, his family is now protecting them.

Quality, not quantity

For centuries, spectacled bears, named for the cream-coloured rings around their eyes, have roamed the high-altitude moors and dense Andean forests, as well as tropical and subtropical cloud forests in Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru.

But the spectacled bear – the species the character Paddington Bear is based on – is now considered vulnerable, according to The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List, which assesses the conservation status of different plants and animals. Although there is no data on how many bears existed in the past, their population is believed to have declined.

Today, there are only an estimated 13,000 to 18,000 bears remaining. About 3,000 to 6,000 of those are in Colombia. Peru has the largest population of spectacled bears.

Activities such as logging, mining, cattle ranching and agricultural expansion have led to deforestation and a loss of habitat for the only bear species native to South America. In some areas, the bears have even been killed – shot by farmers to prevent them from attacking livestock on nearby farms.

But a small group of coffee producers in the region of Valle de Cauca is helping to reverse this decline. Bravo is one of them.

The town of El Aguila is a small coffee-growing community in Valle de Cauca [Catherine Ellis/Al Jazeera]

Above the small town of El Aguila, a coffee-producing community that straddles a mountainous ridge with sweeping views of valleys and forest-cloaked slopes, a handful of farmers are freeing up portions of their land used for coffee cultivation, hunting and logging. The goal: helping to restore the natural habitat of the spectacled bear.

In return, they are receiving support and financial help that allows them to maximise productivity and grow higher-grade coffee on smaller plots of land.

The coffee growers are part of We Conserve Life, a collaboration between local farmers, the nonprofit Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), the government agency National Natural Parks of Colombia (PNN) and a small collection of other public and private entities.

“We’ve learned about the bears and how to conserve their habitat. But as coffee producers, it’s also been a huge benefit,” says Liliana Grisales, as she tends to the carefully planted rows of coffee plants in front of her house.

As well as receiving tools and machinery to help harvest and dry the beans more efficiently, participating farmers are also given microorganisms to reactivate the soil and enrich it with nutrients, which is crucial for high-quality coffee.

With this support, instead of focusing on the size of the harvest, Grisales and the other farmers can concentrate on producing the best beans. This means cultivating a selection of coffee plants, picking the best coffee cherries – bright red in colour – and carefully washing, drying and fermenting the beans that can be sold at a higher price.

“It’s not about quantity, but quality of the coffee,” explains Grisales, standing in the mid-morning sun as it illuminates the jade mountains behind her.

Liliana Grisales has given part of her land for conservation of the spectacled bear and uses small plots of the remaining land to grow high-quality coffee [Catherine Ellis/Al Jazeera]

Creating ‘stepping stones’

Spectacled bears are shy, solitary creatures with black to dark-red coarse fur that helps with camouflage. The omnivores, which weigh between 82-154kg (180-340 pounds) and typically live about 20 years, play an important role in the ecosystem as seed dispersers and pollinators. They climb trees or forage on the ground for fruit and nuts and occasionally eat small rodents, rabbits and birds.

Primarily active at night, they sleep in secluded spots during the day – making platform-like nests among tree branches, or sheltering between roots or den-like cavities in the earth. But expansive agricultural practices and logging have destroyed many of these feeding and resting spots.

In 2016, WCS identified five large areas with either a strong presence of the bears or significant habitat loss, totalling 380,000 hectares (939,000 acres) — just slightly smaller than the state of Rhode Island in the United States.

But establishing dedicated rehabilitation and protection zones was not the answer. “One of the first things we realised when we identified these nucleuses of conservation, is that we couldn’t just create a new national park to cover such a big area,” says Ivan Mauricio Vela, big mammals leader at WCS Colombia.

“Bearing in mind that 70 percent of Colombia’s human population is concentrated in the Andes, it just wasn’t possible.”

Instead, We Conserve Life partnered with farmers willing to free up some of their land to form biological pathways to link forests and protected areas like Tatamá, Fallarones and Munchique National Natural Parks, located in Colombia’s Western Andes.

“The idea was to generate in the countryside what we call ‘stepping stones’ – like what you need to cross a river,” Vela explains. “So we are creating patches of forest where the bears can move and where the landscape becomes more accessible for them.”

The wildlife organisation WCS places cameras on the farmers’ land to monitor the presence of spectacled bears [Courtesy of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS]

Rather than selling their land or transferring ownership of it, the farmers involved in the project commit to using it to restore the bears’ habitat. No legally binding contracts are involved, but the farmers, companies and organisations sign voluntary conservation agreements stipulating the responsibilities of each party. For example, owners agree to keep farming the land and not cut down trees. The agreement is renewed every five years.

Although WCS says a farmer pulling out of the project would mean some disruption to the biological pathways, so far, no one has withdrawn, and the alliance is keen for more farmers to eventually participate.

Since 2018, the project has on-boarded 16 farmers in the El Aguila area – the majority of them coffee growers – who have aggregated 681 hectares (1,683 acres) at altitudes between 1,800 and 2,200 metres (5,900-7,217 feet) to create corridors that allow the spectacled bear to move freely between different zones. They are being rejuvenated by either planting the land with seeds to encourage regeneration or leaving it to recuperate naturally without any intervention.

‘The big lie’

Initially, the coffee producers were not enthusiastic about the conservation project. Many, including Bravo, were openly resistant.

“I was closed like a can of sardines,” Bravo jokes. “We were loggers, hunters. And for people to arrive asking us to collaborate in a project – well, for us, they were almost enemies.” Some of his family even called the initiative “the big lie”, he says, adding that the mistrust stemmed from previous bad experiences with outside authorities, who they believed would penalise their illegal activities – or even take their land.

Although he was part of the first group to sign up for the project in 2018, Bravo remained cautious, convinced there was a catch. He joined only after multiple meetings with the alliance and discussions with fellow farmers – and after having considered the benefits of receiving new equipment to improve his farm.

It was a defining moment for him in 2021, however, when he saw evidence that the project was actually working. Farmers who had given up land were shown footage from cameras set up on their properties to capture the movement of the mountain’s animals.

Along with deer, armadillos, foxes and even puma – there were spectacled bears.

“I felt this incredible joy. I knew it wasn’t a lie,” Bravo says animatedly, recalling the excitement of watching the shy but curious bears wandering his land. “It’s one thing being told about the bears without seeing them – or even believing they’re still real – but it’s another thing actually seeing them.”

Footage of a spectacled bear roaming the land given up by the coffee farmers in El Aguila [Courtesy of the WCS]

A responsibility to future generations

For coffee farmer Carlos Rendon, learning about the threats to the spectacled bear and the wider environment was a significant awakening.

“I knew I had to act because this shouldn’t be just about thinking about ourselves, but about other creatures, as well as the generations that come after us, so that they can enjoy nature,” says the 76-year-old Rendon, who describes himself as having been a “major hunter” before becoming involved in the project.

“Those of us who are former predators, we should try to fix the damage that we have done,” he adds, pausing to take small, slow sips of aromatic black coffee.

Carlos Rendon has been growing coffee all his life near El Aguila [Catherine Ellis/Al Jazeera]

Part of the alliance’s modus operandi was to generate awareness among the coffee growers about threats to the bear, such as hunting, as well as extensive and unsustainable farming practices that can endanger animal populations and result in habitat degradation.

But asking coffee producers to give up growing coffee completely was not feasible.

“Coffee production couldn’t just stop because, obviously, people can’t live off fresh air,” Vela from WCS explains. The organisation knew it had to work with the farmers, find out what their priorities were, and how they could make their coffee farming processes more efficient.

To intensify production on smaller areas of land, companies and organisations within the alliance provide technical expertise, as well as financing for coffee machinery and items individual farms might need to make life on the farm more efficient, safe and sustainable – such as solar panels and septic tanks.

“We help them with things like renewing the crop [pruning, replanting], fertilisation plans and a more efficient pulp washing system, and enable them to dry the coffee more efficiently,” says Luis David Padilla Duque, conservation coordinator at the Argos Group Foundation, the charitable arm of the Argos Group, a major cement and infrastructure investment firm.

“We’re not looking to obtain any capital returns in this. What we’re looking for with the resources that we invest is that different communities become more productive.”

A meeting of the coffee farmers involved in the bear conservation project in El Aguila [Catherine Ellis/Al Jazeera]

Yielding results

Today, the farmers in El Aguila are seeing results. They are producing better coffee, making more money and are also seeing a resurgence of trees and vegetation on the land they once farmed and have now allocated to helping the bears.

Coffee farmers receive financial assistance and new machinery for growing and harvesting as part of the project [Catherine Ellis/Al Jazeera]

Eight of the coffee producers have joined together to launch their own brand of artisan coffee, Café Oso Andino. They also contribute to the local economy by employing locals to help with the picking and production during the harvest. The producers visit schools to educate students about the spectacled bear and other native wildlife, as well as the importance of conservation.

For Grisales, coffee represents the heartbeat of the communities in and around El Aguila.

“It’s our livelihood, the economy and the way we support our families,” she says, sitting on an indoor terrace overlooking her coffee crop, as her young daughter plays contentedly with a kitten beside her. A framed photo of a spectacled bear hangs above them on the wall.

“But if we can produce a better quality coffee, we can sell at a much better price, like we’re doing now, obviously our quality of life improves a lot too.”

Indicators suggest that in El Aguila the project is also yielding results for spectacled bears — the main goal. Their population appears to be increasing. In 2016, by using a standardised scientific occupancy model used to monitor elusive fauna, WCS found that the probability that the bears occupied different places around the mountain range was 56 percent. In 2021, this probability had increased to 73 percent.

“When we find an increase in occupancy, this is used as a proxy for abundance, so we can infer that bear populations are increasing,” says Vela. “For us, this was a big success.”

A spectacled bear sits in a tree [Richard Sharrocks/Getty]

The WCS is currently in the process of evaluating the density of the spectacled bear population in the Western Andes, where the coffee producers are based, and hopes to have a clearer indication of the number of bears in 2025.

Sitting on the terrace of his house, Bravo reflected fondly on what he has gained.

“Now, when I go to the forest, it’s normal to find animals I didn’t even know were there, and to hear birds singing that used to be scared away by chainsaws,” he says.

Before long, he says, “I had fallen in love with the mountains, with nature – and with looking after the spectacled bear,” he says, an infectious grin spreading across his face. “They never warned me that that would happen.”